I don't think anyone is stupid, including people with severe learning disabilities. People do all sorts of stupid things, but I think to explain that it's not 'stupidity' or 'sub-average intelligence' that you want, but generally just ignorance. In this case, there's also trust(ingness), which I think is actually a good quality, even if completely misapplied and quite dangerous in the case of demagoguery and/or irresponsibility in power.

I have no clue about what "medical grade" chloroquine would be taken, I'm assuming it wasn't formulated by a pharmacist into Plaquenil/Hydroxychloroquine however, so caveat emptor in terms of asking who is providing them with a potentially toxic substance in the first place.

Is it really so unrealistic to expect a certain amount of caution from people when something like a strong medicine is involved? Even leaving out the guy who drank aquarium cleaner, which, sorry, is just a stupid act no matter how you look at it, I don't really see why someone would feel compelled to self-medicate on something without any medical guidance because there are hopes that it might turn out to work (and those hopes actually exist, or at least did, for once Trump wasn't completely making it up). Especially as, from what I gather, this wasn't a case of "I'm literally dying and desperate to try whatever I can".

Or am I expecting too much here?

I'd still never argue that Trump went about this in any kind of responsible or cautious way, but isn't it in itself a very American attitude to fully put the onus on whoever failed to list all of the things you shouldn't do, "don't dry your dog in the microwave" style, rather than saying that 'the average person' should realise this is not a good idea?

No unfortunately.
People were being duped by Alex Jones with his magic toothpaste,
and,
the crazy anti-Science christian right have been plaguing Africa with their toxic mouthwash.

The deceased guy in Phoenix had no idea that 'hydroxy chloroquine' wasn't the 'chloroquine' Trump touted as an unproven elixir to combat the corona virus.
Trump is wilfully stupid. He doesn't know the damage his paraphrasing of details causes.
The guy in Phoenix does.

Look at it this way, if 5 people out of a potential audience of 500,000,000 died because of Trump's press conference proclamation that 'chloroquine' is a 'cure', this ignores the multiple news articles preceding this including statements by Elon Musk,

...and major titles including Wired and Science had discussed the same over the preceding seven days. Nobody died then, that I know of.

So, maybe this just speaks of the average intelligence of someone who takes Trump at his word, which would unfortunately again be Darwinism in action, so perhaps the US government should have the foresight of putting a health warning on the President.

So, maybe this just speaks of the average intelligence of someone who takes Trump at his word, which would unfortunately again be Darwinism in action, so perhaps the US government should have the foresight of putting a health warning on the President.

I would put money on it actually being unscrupulous advertisers on social media platforms touting the stuff, and referencing Trump as an authority that causes this behaviour. I would be surprised if anyone took action based on the information in the news or the press conference without some kind of persuasion. Perhaps Musk's name is being used in the same way, too.

Well, if the guy had been sold it as a 'cure' by some cynical actor I'd be more sympathetic, but wouldn't make him entirely blameless-I mean we don't buy medicines off the back of a truck for a reason eh?

The reality also is it that he consumed it from a bottle/package that would have had all the legal warnings and hazardous substance labels on it that are required for toxic substances. To do that without double checking wtf you're doing is just crazy imhop...

As with coops assuming Lariam contains chloroquine, and could have googled that for himself

Yeah, I could have - but I was busy doing other stuff at the time and just fired off a comment. And I didn't assume anything. I genuinely didn't know (and the other shit fucked me up for the best part of a week and a half). FWIW I agreed with your take on the article and what the bloke did to himself - he had something that was plainly labelled as not a medicine and took it as a medicine without a thought to dosage, why it might be packaged as something else and for that use (apparently clearly labelled as such), what might be in that product with it etc, etc, etc.

Berlin District Mayor deliberately infects himself with Covid 19 to share quarantine with his infected girlfriend. Is surprised by how unpleasant it was. Denies being a bad example, despite his district being the worst infected part of Berlin.